(no subject)

[mmkaternater]

The NYPD doesn't have an official gym. Not anymore, anyway. Not since the basement in the bottom of the 12th had been found to contain "unusually high levels of asbestos" and not since everybody agreed that it was probably not a good idea for New York's Finest to run on treadmills located underneath five hundred pounds of the stuff. For the last five years, the District Attorney and the mayor had been trying to talk their constituents into springing for a new facility, but response was as sluggish as the blood flow through a diabetic's arteries. In the interim, the New York City branch of the FBI has offered use of their gym to any officer who wants to come in and burn off a few blue calories.

And that's where Castle is today.

Or, would be, more accurately, if he could get past the security cartel in the lobby. Despite the fact that Beckett had finally gotten around to getting him his own sent of presentable credentials, the G at the security desk isn't buying the whole "authorial ride-along" shtick, and Castle has had to sweat through three inter-departmental phone calls, a background check, and a number of pissed-off-looking agents who have filed in behind him, already looking like they just need an excuse to knock a guy's block off.

"I'm with Detective Kate Beckett," he tries again, hoisting his gym bag along his shoulder. "B-E-C-K-E-T-T. Badge number...hell, I don't know her badge number. Page her. She's expecting me."

The badge behind the desk cups his large hand over the mouthpiece of his phone. He looks like the kind of guy who uproots tree stumps in his spare time. "I don't have a record of you on the books, Mr. Castle. You're certain she was meeting you today?"

"Yeah, today. She's got to get re-certified in hand-to-hand combat next week. We were going to practice a few moves."

Stony silence. Castle hears a couple of Gs chuckle in line behind him.

"What?"

"No offense, Mr. Castle, but unless you're gonna' take dictation during her re-certification, she's probably gonna' do better on her own."

Castle casts a glance down to his top-of-the-line sneakers and never-been-sweated-in NYU t-shirt. "You think I don't have what it takes? I'll have you know, I can be pretty intimidating when I want to be. I made a waiter cry once."

The badge chuckles into his collar and returns to his phone call. Castle scans the lobby, touching his stomach with the tips of his fingers, looking dejected. A few seconds later the guy hangs up, gives Castle a tight smirk, and says, "All right, man. She's on her way down to collect you. 'Careful you don't knock her in the head with those forearms of yours."

"Watch it. I can take a maître d' out in two seconds flat."

Comments

[fanofthegenre]

"Okay."

She rolls her shoulders again, trying to prevent herself from tensing up. The last thing they need is for either of them to get too stiff. Her hands find his, guiding them to her shoulders, while hers mirror the position on his, arms resting outside his.

"The trick to the move is more of a hip-throw than a shoulder-flip, because it puts less strain on your back," Beckett explains. "But it's good to start facing your opponent, because you usually go from there. Now, what you want to do is step away from me and turn around, but grab one of my arms and pull it over your shoulder, hard, so I lose my balance."

[bestsellingego.livejournal.com]

"Lift with your legs, not with your back," he remembers dutifully. "Unless you're lawn-darting a member of the Italian mafia. Then you lift with whatever you can to avoid a nap with the fishes."

He listens to her instructions, registers her consent with his eyes, then tries the move in slow motion: step, turn, twist, pull. He feels her body drape against his spine. He might pretend to be hard of hearing for her next set of instructions.

[fanofthegenre]

"Less talk, more pull," Beckett mutters, until she's forced forward onto her tiptoes by the angle that has her pressing against his back, her hips flush against his rear. She blows a rebellious strand of hair out of her face and nods her approval, slipping her wrist from his grasp and backing up to start over from the first step.

"Okay, good. This time, when you pull me forward, bend your knees to sort of hoist my weight up onto you, and then flip me over your hip - " Her hand moves to the correct placement on him. " - right here.

"The idea is to let the ground knock the wind out of your opponent, and since they're falling from hip level, they hit the ground faster, which makes it harder for them to recover. If you tried to flip me over your shoulder, it'd be easier for me to land on my feet, you know?"

[bestsellingego.livejournal.com]

"That makes sense." He should be taking notes. His thumb slides beneath the shallow dip in her elbow where all of the nerves come together, the rest of his fingers rounding out around the curve of her forearm.

"I didn't know that being one of the Blue came with a physics lesson."

[fanofthegenre]

"Even spontaneity can have some kind of logic to it," she says, moving with him as he turns and winding up in the position, her back curved as she covers him.

"Try to flip me," she adds, her breath hovering next to his ear as she shifts to give the illusion of a struggling opponent.

[bestsellingego.livejournal.com]

Castle pushes his nose over his shoulder, angling a grin in her direction. "Let me think about it." Her breath in his ear and her body over his back are a pair of pretty interesting distractions. 'Hard not to think about what one shift of his hand might do -- except, of course, to attract the attention of the half dozen Gs who're trying (and failing) not to look interested in the match.

He pushes his thumb into her palm and squeezes her knuckles, tipping her off that he's going to go for it. It's slow at first, Castle getting his bearings and his gravity, but he gets the idea and she bends over his back. He feels her arm brace itself against the pull. 'Remembers a moment later to bend at the knees so she won't have far to fall. It's not graceful and she ends up sliding to the floor rather than going over in a heap, but that's because Castle is simultaneously trying to spare her body and his back.

His fingers are still wound 'round her wrist.

"You okay?"

He's panting a little.

[fanofthegenre]

She doesn't want to offer him any help in the movement, but at the same time, she wants to make this easy on both of them, a practice run-through and enough for him to get the basic idea rather than something sloppy that will hurt both of them again. She doesn't resist when he pulls, and performs somewhat of a sideways roll off of his hip as he moves forward to bring her there. At the last second, her free hand slaps the mat to spare her body the force of friction, and she finds she's not nearly as breathless when her back hits the ground. If this were the real thing, the wind would quite effectively be knocked out of her.

"Yeah," she murmurs, her brow furrowed with effort as she squints up at him.

That quickly gives way to a grin of encouragement, and her fingers wind around his hand, using her hold to pull herself back to her feet. Furtively, her eyes check him for any signs that he's hurting, but there doesn't seem to be any unbearable pain.

"That was good," Beckett adds, her hand lingering in his for another moment until she remembers to let go.

[bestsellingego.livejournal.com]

"That sucked, but thanks for the platitude." He takes his hand from hers and wipes his sweaty palm on the front of his t-shirt. "I don't think I'm gonna' be trying out for the WWE any time soon." Although don't think he hasn't considered the costumes.

"Try to flip me," he encourages.

[fanofthegenre]

"No, it wasn't bad," she swears. Neither of them have serious injuries out of the deal, so she's counting it as a success. She reaches behind her head to tighten her ponytail with a small tug, pausing in her movement, surprised.

"You sure?"

[bestsellingego.livejournal.com]

"Come on, I want to see how it's done." He draws himself up to his full height and plants his sneakers on the mat, squaring his balance. "I signed a waiver, remember?"

[fanofthegenre]

"Okay, but don't say I didn't warn you."

At worst, she'll just succeed in taking his breath away - and not in the obvious way. If he doesn't squirm or panic and break the flow of things, that is. She grabs his forearm and spins, barely giving him time to blink before she presses back into his hips and bends her knees, hoisting him up and over her side.

[bestsellingego.livejournal.com]

"Whoa! --" mid-flip, the whole room spinning wildly on its axis, Castle has a fraction of a second to appreciate the world from an upside down perspective before he's on his back on the mat, lungs shuddering.

There is appreciative applause from the peanut gallery.

His breath comes back to him in a rough, low gasp. He blinks up at her, his expression a fifty-fifty of surprise and appreciation.

"Wow." Voice strained, mostly from the effort of trying to peel his lungs off the back of his chest. "I think my entire life just flashed before my eyes. 'You remember Microsoft Office '95?"

[fanofthegenre]

There's a half-second's length of time where she's almost convinced she's really hurt him, but then he breathes and a part of her feels like she can breathe again as well. Her hands fall to her hips and she's fairly certain her smirk can be deciphered even from the G's who can only see the back of her head.

"If that's what your mind flashed back to, I think you really need to get a life," she teases, holding out a hand for him to use and hoist himself back up when he's regained his normal breathing rhythm again.

[bestsellingego.livejournal.com]

He takes her forearm and flashes her a look -- Please excuse any sounds of a struggle I might make in getting up -- before he uses her for leverage to get to his feet. Some things crack and pop, but Castle's no worse for wear post-flight.

"All right. From now on, I'll leave the Karate Kid stuff to you." He folds his palms together and bows to her, a pupil before his sensei.

[fanofthegenre]

Her other hand comes around to clap him on the back, careful not to make hard contact in case he's trying to hide a tender muscle or a strained tendon. If it lingers, it's only unconscious and nothing else.

"You actually held your own." Her voice shows signs she's impressed.

"So, are we thinking hot shower or ice?"

[bestsellingego.livejournal.com]

Castle feeds her a look that would be kicked out of a church if it had corporeal form.

"For me or for my bruised masculinity?" He waves a hand. "I'll be fine. 'Might sit down for a while, though. If you wanna' take a swing at some of the Everlast bags for extra practice, I can hang around. I can always pick up some tips watching you spar with a real opponent."

[fanofthegenre]

Beckett shrugs off the offer, already close to her cooling-down stage.

"Don't worry about it. I was able to go a few rounds while you were downstairs trying to get through the red tape." There's a stack of freshly-cleaned white cotton towels resting on a shelf near the mat; she heads in that direction to grab one and dab at the back of her neck.

"Besides, I could probably use the chance to soak."

[bestsellingego.livejournal.com]

"And gloat," he suggests, a very good sport about the fact that a ninety-pound female detective just kicked his ass up and down the gym. He tugs the zipper on his gym bag and pulls out a pair of bottled waters, passing one to her before he shifts the strap of the bag over his shoulder.

He cracks the cap on his bottle and takes a long swig, Adam's apple bobbing rhythmically. When he finishes, he drags the back of his wrist over his lips. "Gotta say, for the record? That was pretty hot. You didn't even flinch. It was just up and over. Authors-over-easy. 'Completely feeds my fantasy of you as an Amazon war goddess."

[fanofthegenre]

"An Amazon war goddess?" Beckett's voice reflects both incredulity and amusement; she manages to curb her smile to a degree where she can swig from the water bottle he's handed her, but she's already chuckling before she can swallow. Her own gym bag rests a few feet away; she leans over to pick it up, in a slow movement that won't put too much strain on her back.

By the time she's resituated, shifting the weight of the strap on her shoulder, she's face-to-face with Castle again.

"And are there theme-appropriate outfits that go along with this fantasy of yours?"

[bestsellingego.livejournal.com]

"Several. But wardrobe really isn't important once you drag the dashing, albeit alarmingly-out-of-his-depth jungle explorer into your hut." His grin just barely teases the envelope.

[fanofthegenre]

She tilts her head, almost as if she's giving the idea a fair amount of thought - and then shakes her head.

"Roleplay might do it for you, Castle, but I'm a girl with simple tastes."

[bestsellingego.livejournal.com]

"So I should cancel those tickets to the Congo, huh?"

He grabs a towel on his way off the mat, swinging the terrycloth around his shoulders like the prize fighter he isn't. 'Scrubs the back of his neck with one end and reflects on getting a gym membership, if only to keep up with her on the daily grind. They pass a group of feds working the weights and Castle sucks in his stomach. Frailty, thy name is 'author'.

[fanofthegenre]

There may be a slightly hidden smile as she catches that particular move in her periphery. Beckett rocks back onto the heels of her sneakers, balanced perfectly, as she waits for the elevator to rise.

"Anything else make it onto your day planner today?"

She's already picturing the scenario in her apartment: the clawed-foot bathtub, filled to brimming with hot water and some of the bath salts Kate had sent her as a Valentine's gift. The image alone is enough to send another flare of pain to her worked muscles.

[bestsellingego.livejournal.com]

Reminded, Castle pulls his iPhone out of his bag and flicks his thumb over the screen, checking messages. "Alexis has this Career Day thing at school. I've got to drop by the apartment for a shower and a change of clothes before I head over there." He banks a look at her. "Though I'm seriously starting to question the whole educational system if they want a guy like me in there giving career advice to high school students."

He frames the speech with a hand: "'Work hard, study hard, believe in yourself' --" he turns his wrist "-- but if you can't do any of that, crank out a couple of novels and wait for the champagne to start flowing."

[fanofthegenre]

"If I'd heard a speech like that on my school's Career Day? I don't know, maybe there wouldn't have been a Nikki Heat after all," she jokes, stepping onto the elevator once the doors open. Taking advantage of the brief respite, she lets her bag fall to the carpeted floor, rolling each of her shoulders in turn. Sparring is, admittedly, one of her favorite ways to exercise, but it can take its toll on the body, especially the move she'd been doing with Castle.

"It's good, though," Beckett adds. "That you're doing this kind of thing for her. Kids always say they'd rather their parents stayed far, far away, but secretly, they like it when they show up to chaperone field trips or parent-teacher conferences. It shows that you're a father who, you know, cares."